Science & Technology

View colorful flowers that grow on cacti, succulents, and other xerophilic organisms—those that thrive in dry environments.

The observable universe has a mass of about 100 sexdecillion kilograms—a one followed by 53 zeroes.

Tree rings can track and reveal centuries of environmental change and natural events, including yearly precipitation and fire frequency.

Named for its construction on a kitchen table, the Model K added binary numbers and laid the groundwork for modern digital computing.

Seaweed can collect critical minerals from ocean water, which can later be used in batteries, solar panels, and other clean-energy technologies.

Metals are considered noble if they are highly resistant to corrosion, rust, and tarnishing, and include gold, platinum, and palladium.

Metal plates can be pushed together by empty space—the Casimir effect—because of virtual particles that cannot be observed but are predicted by quantum field theory.

El Niño makes the equatorial Pacific Ocean bluer than usual as high temperatures kill off microscopic plants that normally give the waters a green hue.

Gold can be dissolved by aqua regia—a combination of two acids that, on their own, cannot dissolve gold.

Explore a gallery of cellular activity at the microscopic scale, captured by participants of the 2026 Nikon Small World in Motion competition.

Watch the birth of a neutron star, which takes less than one second, in this high-fidelity, 3D visualization.

Gasoline engines cannot run on diesel fuel, which is thicker and not easily ignited by spark plugs—the chemical reaction that powers combustion engines.

Hydras appear to be immortal, and each of the aquatic animal's individual cells can rebuild its entire body within days.

It's always snowing in Earth's oceans, but marine snow is predominantly made of decaying organic material, not ice crystals.

Kodak operated a nuclear device in the basement of its Rochester headquarters for over 30 years to create neutron images and analyze materials.

Visualize annual changes in forest area across countries, continents, and national income levels since 1991.

The largest earthquake in recorded history is a 9.5-magnitude event in 1960, which left 2 million Chileans unhoused.

The Koch snowflake has an infinitely long border but can fit inside a simple circle with a finite area.

Thomas Edison's first patented invention was a voting machine, but Congress rejected its use.

Electrical energy transfers at near light speed, even though the electrons carrying the energy in circuits only move a fraction of a millimeter per second.

Instead of '.com' or similar, modern web addresses on the dark web end in 'd.onion'.

Tardigrades can survive decades without water while curling up their microscopic, bear-like bodies into a shriveled-up ball.

The dark web cannot be stumbled upon by accident—it requires specialized software and website addresses only available on a need-to-know basis.

Hawaii is actively growing as its underlying tectonic plate moves across a hotspot that creates new volcanoes.

Watch a time-lapse of photosynthesis activity across Earth, as seen from space.

There is no such thing as nothing in physics—even the vacuum of space is full of undetectable particle-antiparticle activity called 'quantum foam.'

Ants can be turned into zombies by Cordyceps—a group of over 250 parasitic fungi that inspired the video game and show 'The Last of Us.'

Associated with wandering souls and ghost fire, will-o'-the-wisps may be the result of microlightning between bubbles.

Google's first storage server was housed in a cabinet made of Lego bricks.

Dolphins never fully fall asleep, keeping half their brains awake so they can breathe at the water's surface while resting.

Walk around Relativity Park—a virtual theme park where you can experience relativistic effects by slowing down the speed of light.

A shaken can of soda can be safely opened by tapping on the sides of the container.

Yellowstone National Park has more geysers than the rest of the world combined.

Elysia chlorotica is a sea slug that can photosynthesize, making it an animal with the defining ability of a plant.

The Concorde airliner stretched up to 10 inches while flying because friction from its supersonic speeds heated and expanded its aluminum body.

The death of his wife may have inspired Samuel Morse to invent the telegraph, which uses an electromagnet to quickly send messages over long distances.

Euler's identity has been described as the most beautiful equation in mathematics.

As many as 500 million smart devices worldwide come preinstalled with malware that lets strangers use a person's internet connection.

Check out a 90-second guide to spotting AI-generated videos and the AI detection tools used by a fact-checking global newsroom.

Earth's rotation rate constantly changes, which drove the need for leap seconds to synchronize a solar day with timekeeping tools.

Radiation can create green diamonds, while red diamonds result from structural imperfections, despite being among the most valued.

The world's largest algal bloom spans from the Caribbean to West Africa.

The world's oldest isolated water is about 1.6 billion years old and has a musty, sulfuric odor.

Unlike most metals, gold is yellowish rather than silver because fast-moving electrons reduce the size of its atoms and alter how they absorb light.

Egg yolks and carrots have the same pigments that contribute to the yellow and orange colors of fall foliage.

Lining up every microbe on Earth would stretch to about 105,000 light-years—roughly the diameter of the Milky Way galaxy.

White dwarfs solidify into a diamond-like crystal from the inside out as they cool, according to research and observations.

The world's longest-running evolution experiment has tracked genetic changes in E. coli across more than 74,000 generations since 1988.

You can sharpen your vision by looking through a pinhole—the equivalent of narrowing a camera's aperture to reduce blurriness.

Despite what you've been told, dividing by zero is possible—if you're willing to make every number equal to zero.